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As you may have noticed, I have become very comfortable with not writing the blog these days. Not that one activity excludes the other but I’ve been busy trying to make the store go which involves waiting for people to come in while farting around with things. Because I had that nifty port around, I learned about silver soldering. What I learned was it’s really hard to do well and also that I am chicken to solder actual silver. Missy has a lot of scrap copper so I cut out a hedgehog:

When I solder him to the brass I will have something. The thing about learning something new is you have to be proficient at a lot of different things in order to make something work, or at least be confident that you can do it again or fix it if you fuck it up at some point. So it’s intimidating, the metal work.

One thing I am pretty good at is stamping snarky things into copper:

I’ve found that the brilliant thoughts really start flowing and my stamping gets better after a cocktail or two. Is there a market for un- inspirational copper tags? Maybe well find out in 2012.

What else to show…in Nov. I spent about a day making pill bottle lights for around the front window:

That was the extent of my holiday decorating. There is a shop up the street that, to borrow a phrase from John Stewart, looks like the yule tide version of “Hoarders”. I’m not a crab about the holidays, and that shop’s decorations are very pretty, but, because I am lazy and I’m short on storage space I tend toward hanging decorations that can stay up at least until Valentine’s Day, if not all year long.

Speaking of the year and everything, we had a very successful New Year’s party the other day. No one remembers for sure but I think last year, because I was sick and all, we broke with tradition and did not come up with a name for the New Year. The source of the confusion on this topic is the loss of the Grand Record of year names (a pizza box lid from 200o-something with a list of all the names on it). I don’t know…it might have gotten thrown out in one of the great junk purges of 2011, of which there were two. I can’t be expected to keep track of every box lid with writing on it. Anyway, because the tradition continues, I’ve re-constructed the list from past blog posts and also from memory. I’m putting it here where we can have it for reference without picking up a grimy piece of cardboard:

2006 The Year of No Consequences

2007 The Year of the Apocalopse

2008 Year of Curbing Your Inner Dumbass

2009 Year of Blessed Traps

2010 Year of Miracles of Little Consequence

2011 ?

Now that I think about it, 2011 might have been the Year of Polishing the Turd. That sounds familiar to me, though that might be because it is one of the phrases I stamped into copper the other day. Hmmm. Anyway, a by-product of Saturday’s festivities is a long list of names for 2012 from which we have to pick one and then get on with our lives. We’ll probably do that next weekend, so I might have that to post, at least.

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well I will be waiting to hear what the year of 2011 was because in our case it was the year of indescribably insane polishing the turd.
Honestly, I am at a loss for words. How much polishing does a turd need? Apparently a lot.
On the other hand, If I had the $$$ I would go for one of those stamps of yours and wear it with pride. and your pill bottle wreath and lights? You are brilliant. You say it with visual elegance which leaves me as always, agog.
Happy New Year! xox jean

Hi Jean!
I’m going to say 2011 was the year of polishing the turd because that seems appropriate to me too, and no one else remembers for sure. I made a polished turd bead yesterday and,,it’s kind of pretty.
Me and Missy and Sarah were at the shop late drinking rum and cokes when the stamps happened. That will probably happen again so you may have a stamp or several in the mail. Interest in the negative stamps has been expressed, but the suggested phrases are too vulgar for the blog.

Hi ya, Kate!
Pill bottle lights are super easy to make–all you need is a drill, bottles and a string of LED lights. I intend to have them up year ’round. I have about two milk crates of bottles people donated to me so I could make more strings but I think I’m going to hold out until I have enough to build an igloo that me and T-Bone can play in out in the back yard.

Glad you are trying out metalsmithing. Be patient and give yourself time to solder. Think of it like heating up the glass and watching the flux become clear and then you are ready to add the solder.
I’m a metalsmith trying to become a lampworker but don’t have the lampworking torch yet.

Experience with melting glass is really helpful for the soldering-I haven’t melted anything but the solder, so far. Missy says that’s good for a beginner. My goal is to get rings made. I just bought a bunch of silver so we’ll be giving that a go soon.

I remember that little hedgehog quill box you showed me some time ago. I feel like we’re on the same page, inspiration-wise!